Chapter 62
Alexa, play ‘Break My Baby,’ by KALEO
“You can’t shake hands with a clenched fist.”
—INDIRA GANDHI
T he last place they showed me was a place they called the Infernal Woodlands. We didn’t enter the woods, but they walked me to the tree line.
“What is this?” I asked.
“A forest.” Shem smirked, and I rolled my eyes.
“Obviously. What makes it different from the forests on Earth?” I asked, and Ramel exchanged a look with Shem.
“Even mortal Lilith is clever,” Shem purred.
Ramel glanced at me, the corner of his perfect mouth curling. “The Infernal Woodlands are where dangerous ideas grow,” he informed me. “Every rebellion, genocide, revolution, and nightmare that mankind has ever had starts here, as a seed from one of your idea trees.”
“My idea trees?” I asked, looking up at the towering, black, coniferous trees that crowded at the edge of the forest.
“Yes. In the beginning, humans used to get all kinds of ideas from each other, but they lacked imagination,” Shem said, running his hand down the trunk of one of the trees fondly .
“Hazai began to collect human ideas and bring them back here. You helped him turn them into seeds, and now we’re able to grow and cultivate nefarious ideologies. We plant them in the minds of the leaders of mankind when they need to be corrected.” Ramel continued.
“You see,” Shem said, his eyes flashing, “Yahweh gave the humans free will, but He denied them their true nature. Humans are just as predisposed to be cruel and inhumane as demons. They’re meant to fuck, murder, and sin. Yahweh tries to control them every step of the way. We like to see what they’re capable of.”
“So why do we punish the ones that do not follow Yahweh’s code?” I asked, genuinely curious.
“We don’t always,” Ramel said, wrapping his arm around my shoulder and leading me closer to the tree line. “And honestly, as amusing as their depravity can sometimes be, our goal is always to maintain balance. Too much depravity gets boring if you don’t have some buttoned-up, squeaky-clean asshole to balance it out. We intervene only when Yahweh’s ways become too powerful or too strong. When He convinces the humans to deny their true nature too much. Then it is time to drop a small seed of temptation and watch the world succumb to…”
“ Chaos.” Shem beamed, his pupils dilating and his white teeth flashing in the starlight.
I narrowed my eyes at Shem. “This is why at Voodoo, I always felt like you were just so down to watch the world burn,” I muttered, and he grinned at me.
“You may be the Goddess of Decay, and Ramel may be the Reaper of Death, but I am the Demon of Chaos, Lilith. You named me well when you thought I was your cat.” He smirked, and I couldn’t help but grin back.
“I named you Chaos for your petulant need to poke things off surfaces,” I laughed.
He chuckled in reply. “What better way to stir up some mayhem than to cause things to fall?”
I snorted, eyeing the ominous tree line warily. “I suppose.”
They fell silent as I examined my surroundings, and it took me a moment to process the heaviness in the air. I glanced away from the trees to find them both staring at me hungrily.
I took a nervous step away from them, and their eyes immediately darkened. Ramel narrowed his eyes and reclaimed the step I had taken, forcing me back toward the tree line. Something about the way he was staring at me was making my heart race.
“You’re running again, Lilith,” he said darkly, and I jumped as I felt Shem press in from behind. I tried to whip around to face him, but he grabbed a fistful of my hair and squeezed until my roots burned, forcing me to stay still.
“This game is getting old,” Shem growled in my ear, yanking me into his chest by the hair. I could feel their growing anger like it was a tangible thing. It wasn’t playful. It felt like the church again. I was beginning to realize running was the one rule they truly wouldn’t tolerate me breaking. Everything was a game to them unless it came to my freedom.
They would never let me go. Even the other Lilith seemed frustrated with me for refusing to truly accept it, and I found myself shivering with fear as Ramel’s cold eyes met mine from mere inches away.
He reached forward and tugged on my collar, making me swallow in anticipation. My heart was in my throat and he was staring at my pulse like he was wondering if my heartbeat had a flavor.
“What is it going to take to convince you to stop running, Lilith?” he asked; his tone was soft, but there was no mistaking the dangerous undertone. He raised his hazel eyes back up to meet mine, and I shivered. Shem tightened his grip in my hair and ran a hand up the front of my hoodie. I gasped as he aggressively pinched and twisted my nipple through my bra, hard enough that I flinched.
“Choice,” I gasped, forcing myself to be firm. “I want to be able to have a choice.”
Both Shem and Ramel chuckled as if the idea were ludicrous. Ramel glanced over my shoulder at Shem, and I had the impression that they were silently communicating, as they so often did.
“Tell you what, deathtrap. We can’t give you a choice, but we can give you a chance. ” He pinched my chin in his fingers and forced me to look over at the ominous tree line. Mist swirled around the coniferous trunks, and a cold sense of dread flooded through me at the sight.
Shem bit my earlobe, and I jumped, my scalp stinging as I jerked in his punishing grip. “We’ll give you this one chance to run, sweetheart. If you can get away from us, we’ll let you go.”
“That’s not fair. You have magic. I’m a mortal.”
Ramel seemed to mull this over before nodding. “Alright. We won’t use any magic to catch you.”
I eyed him skeptically, but he softened. “I give you my word, Lilith. No magic. You will have a fair chance to get away.”
I searched his face as best as I could with my body locked so firmly against Shem’s. “What counts as ‘getting away?’ I’ll never make it to the bridge from here.”
“We’ll give you a ten-minute head start. If you can avoid us in the Infernal Woodlands for an hour, you win.”
My mind was racing. An hour? That was a long time, but I knew them. They would stay true to their end of the deal if I agreed to this and pulled it off. It was likely the best deal I was going to ever get. I was surprised they were even giving me this.
“What happens if I lose?” I breathed .
“ When you lose,” Shem ran the tip of his nose up my neck, sending another wave of gooseflesh erupting through me. “You will submit to us. You will do whatever the fuck we tell you without complaint. You will stop fighting. You will agree to be ours and never try to run from us again. In return, we’ll remove your collar, and you will have full range of the manor, starting immediately.”
They would take the collar off?
I bit my lip. The fact that this fucked up little scenario they were forcing me into felt like a win-win for me instead of a twisted game should have probably sent alarm bells through my mind… instead, I just felt excited.
“What’s it going to be, deathtrap?” Ramel asked, his voice a deep dangerous purr.
I swallowed and licked my lips before nodding.
“Okay,” I agreed. “One hour. No magic.”
Shem bit the side of my neck gently and chuckled before releasing his hold on me. He shoved me roughly toward the tree line, a feline grin curving on his lips.
“Run, Lilith. Run as fast as you fucking can because if we catch you, we’ll make sure you never run from us again.”
My stomach bottomed out in terror. I had a moment of regret as I took in the terrifying looks on their faces before I turned on my heel and bolted into the trees.
I was so afraid I could barely breathe. My heart hammered against my ribs, making it almost impossible for me to swallow enough air to keep my legs pumping. The second I hit the tree line, the temperature in the air around me dropped, and what little light had been provided by the night sky dimmed further.
I paused to take in my surroundings. Acres and acres of bone-straight trees stood around me, their thick black trunks standing like silent soldiers in the darkness. The hair on the back of my neck stood up, and I glanced back out toward the graveyard. I couldn’t see Ramel and Shem anymore — had they come after me already?
No. They said ten minutes.
They wouldn’t break the rules of their own game. I forced myself to take a deep breath before sprinting deeper into the woods.
The darkness seemed to press in from every angle, and my entire body began to feel flush with panic. I had never run through the woods in the dark. I tripped several times over roots that seemed to crawl up from the ground out of nowhere, and I wondered if the trees were truly silent witnesses or active participants. If they were playing the game too, whose side were they on?
Branches seemed to reach out and grab at me as I darted through the trees. Woody fingers tore at my hoodie and my hair, scratching my face as I stumbled through the woods. I jumped every time I felt a tug or a pull, my imagination immediately assuming I had been caught.
The feeling of being watched grew in intensity and I became more and more panicked as I ran. My lungs were burning, and my throat was on fire. A twig snapped in the distance, and I clapped my hand over my mouth to keep from sobbing out loud.
It couldn’t have been ten minutes already, could it?
Seconds stretched into minutes, and before I knew it, I was so turned around I had no idea which way I was running anymore. I could have sworn I had run past that fallen log already. Was I heading back the way I had come?
My heart slammed in my chest in terror. Was I running toward them? Or away from them?
My skin rolled with an unexpected shiver, and I was suddenly very sure I wasn’t alone anymore, but I still couldn’t see anything but trees.
A breeze rustled through the branches overhead, and I trembled at the eerie sound. It was so quiet out here, and I felt the need to be still. To hide.
Why did it feel like they were watching me?
“Liliiith…”
I nearly jumped out of my fucking skin at the sound of my name whispering through the silent army of trees. I clapped both hands over my mouth to keep from screaming.
“I can see you, Lilith.”
Whipping around, I felt my eyes strain through the darkness. I could hear them, but I couldn’t fucking see them. I couldn’t even tell what direction their voices had come from.
“What should we do to her when we catch her?” Shem’s voice taunted me from the shadows. I jumped and spun around again; it sounded like I was running directly toward him.
“Make her scream,” Ramel purred from somewhere to my right.
I shot through the trees and felt fingers graze my arm. Jerking away, I choked on a sob. Which one of them was that? Biting back another sob, I forced my legs to move faster, ripping through the woods as quickly as I could. When I looked back again, their shadows were gone.
“I’m going to make her beg so pretty,” Shem purred, once again sounding much closer than he should have been. They were toying with me, I realized. Drawing this out. The fucking sadists could have already caught me, but they wanted me scared.
I heard another twig snap and made a split-second decision. I bolted away from the sound, throwing my arms up over my face to protect my eyes as I crashed through the brush.
I heard one of them laugh. The condescending sound drew a whimper to my throat as I pumped my legs faster, trying my best not to trip on roots or protruding rocks.
“Fuck — your fear makes me so hard. I can’t wait to make you cry.” That was Shem. I spun around again only to catch a glimpse of what I was sure was Shemhazai lurking in the trees.
“Faster, deathtrap.”
I screamed, glancing behind me to find Ramel right there. My stomach bottomed out, and I felt like my heart might explode from the shock of finding him so close. Where had he come from?
“Are you going to try to fight us when we catch you?”
“I hope she fights,” Shem purred from somewhere to my left. “You know I like it when she squirms.”
I turned on my heel and switched directions, screaming again as I almost slammed directly into a tree. Ramel laughed behind me as I stumbled, doing my best to regain my footing as I forced myself to straighten.
“Stop!” I yelped, knowing that they wouldn’t. I couldn’t help it; fear and adrenaline had taken over. My whole body was in full fight-or-flight mode. “Please, stop. I don’t want to play anymore,” I sobbed, glancing over my shoulder again as I ran.
I couldn’t see Ramel anymore, which was somehow even more terrifying. I slammed into something hard, and for a second I thought I had run into another tree, when strong arms wrapped tightly around me and green eyes flashed in the silver beam of moonlight that filtered through the trees overhead.
“Aww. Little Lilith doesn’t want to play?” Shem purred. He spun me around and kicked my knees out before shoving me roughly to the ground. “Too bad, sweetheart. You should have thought of that before you tried to run.”